Yogen Fruz
11661 Preston Road #240
Dallas, TX 75230

FOODGARBL Dallas back up in hurr. I’ve been to I Heart Yogurt, Yogurtland, Yogilicious, TCBY, Fresh Berry and I Can’t Believe It’s Not Yogurt But More of a Yogurt By-product and they were all pretty much same shit different cup. Most of them have the machines on the wall with an option of fatty or super fatty cup size and you pay by the weight of the cup (which is why I always get coconut as a topping b/c I’m sticking it to the man). The flavors range from Birthday Cake to Pistachio to Salted Duck Egg. I wanted plain strawberry with some whale blubber mochi on top though. Is that too much to ask? No, say’s Yogen Fruz. I’m drooling like a nOOb PWNing a fidurple right now just thinking about their yogurty goodness. You see, you pick a flavor of yogurt that YOU WANT using vanilla or chocolate and they mix it with fruit (or go plain vanilla or plain chocolate if you’re racist).

PWNage flavors

I picked mango with vanilla yogurt because I’m awesome. They take this brick of vanilla fro yo out of a wrapper and mix in some bamf ass frozen mango and then throw that junk in the machine to be mixed up. You know the anticipation you felt when Keanu put the bus on cruise control so it wouldn’t drop below 50 mph and they were approaching a ramp that wasn’t finished? That is exactly how I felt when my yogurt was being mixed. The Yogen Fruz guy talked me through it though so I wouldn’t be so nervous. When the awesomeness that was my yogurt was done mixing, Yogen Fruz man asked me if I wanted toppings. I started sweating. What the F do you put on perfect yogurt to make it more perfect? Do you really need to gold plate yogurt? Hey, iPhone, you have touchscreen, do you really need motion sensor too? Showboaters. I digress. I had options and I needed to choose. After all, it’s one price for yogurt with all you can slam toppings.

Gold Plating Already Perfect Yogurt

I went with fresh mango and mochi. Mochi is glutinous rice pounded into paste. That’s what she said. It’s a Japanese gummy bear, if you will. Some might say it’s an Albino Sour Patch Kid. This is all beside the point. Their yogurt will knock your socks to the curb.

Yogen Fruz. From Sveden. Or Canada but vatever.

I can wrap up my dessert in two words: I would run over a baby squirrel to get to Yogen Fruz before closing time.

Note: Still have not been to Orange Cup or Natsumi. Why bother. Sucka please.

It’s official; FOODGARBL Austin is now up and running!!  There is so much good food here, where do we start?  How about a trip to West Austin (aka Northern Italy’s mirror image)?

FOODGARBL busted onto the Austin scene at Cipollina West Austin Bistro.  I knew I had come to the right place when I saw a red Vespa scooter with over 80k miles on it parked outside.  This was actually my second trip to Cipollina, but instead of the full-blown retarded lunch clique, I had a super hot date.

Not to be confused with Ciprollina, the antibiotic Italian food.

The dinner hours at Cip’s were, um … let’s say … a learning experience.  The lesson, I guess, is that even Helen Keller had a sense of taste and it’s probably one of the most important while eating.  Cipollina offers a variety of traditional Italian pasta dishes, but we didn’t get any of those because I had a sneaking suspicion that the pizza was made of poster board and pillow top.  I was right; the pizza had the exact same taste as a twin Serta smothered in Alan Greenspan brand tomato sauce.  MMmm, like Quizno’s helped ‘em!

Lamb Snausage and other ingredients pre-soaked in water.

Prosciutto and goat cheese glop of tasteless shit on crust.

Oh, and of course we ordered hummus, which was even better than the “pizza.”  The hummus (and baba ghanoush) plate was a smurf scrotum-sized serving of Mediterranean Frito-Lay bean dip paste, with some amazingly bland, astonishingly tasteless pitaboard.  I have to say, it was handy to have some pita bread that doubled as fire retardant, in case our table candle flared up, but I would rather have eaten a good appetizer that did not remind me of the time I drew a piece of pita bread on a piece of white construction paper, colored it beige and ate it.

Elmer's Glue hummus and stale pita quilt triangles.

Thirty five was not only our table number, but close to the total cost of the food.  Yes, at a place without table service and no alcohol, we paid nearly $40 for a fresh pigeon-shit appetizer, two Wonderbread pizzas and two glasses of City of Austin ’09 tap water.  It was like if Wal-Mart spun out a Whole Foods-style concept restaurant inside their tire & lube department, and that had a food bar where you could order Italian dishes with a shredded wheat taste twist.

How many crotch kicks I deserve for eating here.

The trendiness factor was a predictable falcon hair, aviator shade, red wine, summer sweater, my-shoes-and-my-girlfriend’s-purse-cost-the-same douche crowd.  The staff (person you meet at the counter, with whom you place an order) was friendly and helpful, but seemed a little debbie downer about making the most tasteless pizza in all of Clarksville.  And you know what’s scary?  The Fearless Critic gave this place an 8+ score, meaning they must like upscale Domino’s pizza, baked with a dryer sheet, at an Austin-chic price.

Trying to be polite.

Is it too late to go eat at the airport?

I can sum up the disappiontment of Cipollina in one word: Mrs. Johnson’s Bakery!!  Holy shit am I glad we decided to make a dozen donut run on the way home!  This Austin landmark is in the North Airport Blvd. neighborhood, which IS as quaint as it sounds.  In fact, had we gone when it was safer (daylight, with police escort), we might have been able to stop in on Vogue College for a hair weave or I Love Video for some semi-erotic samurai VHS tapes.

The sign says it all. Sort of.

I have tried to enroll several times, but keep getting tickets from campus parking enforcement.

Mrs. Johnson’s has the BEST donuts and BEST tricks on first time customers (Mrs. Johnson is actually a man from India).  The first thing they do when you walk through the door is hand you a very hot, very fresh plain glazed right from the oven.  The second thing they do is allow you to violate every imagineable City of Austin health code and take behind-the-counter, up-close pictures of the assembly line.  I accidently sneezed on a donut, but kept an eye on it and snagged it coming off the end of the line.

Reminds me of Saw IV.

Willy Wonka! Er, Tajilly Wunka!

It took me a while to figure out he was screaming because he WANTED me to come behind the counter.

We really only planned on getting a donut or two, but this master salesman ended up clipping me for $8.50!  That would have bought me a round margherita ceiling tile at Cipollina.  I don’t know how Mrs. Johnson felt about the sale, but I think the joke was on him, as I would have paid up to $10 for that dozen assorted and the sweatiest hug I have ever received from another man.

I don't even bother buckling up my shotgun. But these ...

Mrs. Johnson's Bakery courtyard.

???

Our only option. You do NOT take the bus here.

The first FOODGARBLing of Austin was indeed a mixed bag.  Of donuts and pizza exhumed from the Egyptian pryamids.  In conclusion, Cipollina is a great place to eat if you have Irritable Bowel Syndrome or are recovering from oral surgery.  Mrs. Johnson’s Bakery is THE SHIT and offers 24 hour crackhead entertainment from LeRoy’s crew out back.  He was right, “Austhin’s Awesthome!”